Former Zynga Employee: “I’d Give Them Another 2 to 3 Years”

Also, about 5 percent or less of users on average pay real money in Zynga games.

Zynga recently laid off a sizable portion of its work-force across four cities yesterday, which lead to 520 people losing their jobs. One of those employees, who has remaining anonymous but still provided proof of his employment, recently held an AMA session on Reddit.

One of the questions asked was how long would Zynga continue to function at the current rate it’s going. The employee replied, “Hard to say. At this rate, I’d give them another 2 to 3 years. They make money and have a lot in the bank. But they also throw away money like you wouldn’t believe.

“If they actually manage to change their strategy and start putting out some big hits, they could be around a lot longer.”

The session itself holds a good number of juicy details. Just what percent of users spend real money on Zynga games? The employee responded that it “depends on the game, but on average I think it’s about 5%. Maybe less.”